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Courtesy of Simbol Materials

Energy & Sustainability » News

Geothermal Power Plants Could HelpProduce Lithium for Electric CarsA new process aims to extract lithium from the brines used to generate electricity in ageothermal power plant

By David Biello | September 29, 2011

An industrial add-on to geothermal powerplants near the Salton Sea in Californiacould one day produce the lithium that isrequired for electric car batteries. Already,Simbol Materials, the company behind theprocess, has begun purifying lithium fromconventional mining operations inArgentina, Chile and elsewhere for theglobal battery market at a demonstrationfacility in Brawley, Calif.

"We developed the technology and theprocess to take the brines coming out ofgeothermal power plants' post–powerproduction and harvest lithium, manganese,zinc and, maybe in the future, some othermaterials, and we convert those into usablecompounds," says Simbol CEO Luka Erceg."We're essentially leveraging the bestrenewable resource and co-producingstrategic materials."

After geothermal power plants pump up a hot brine—water and dissolved salts fromunderground—and use its heat to make steam to spin a turbine and generateelectricity, Simbol would borrow the still warm fluid for roughly 90 minutes. Apipeline would carry the brine through a series of processes that remove the silica inthe brine (it would otherwise foul the works) and then use a series of membranes,filters and adsorption materials to extract valuable elements like lithium. Theextraction method was developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, whichis primarily funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. Simbol then adds water tomake up for the lost material and sends it back to the geothermal power plant forre-injection underground.

The company plans to expand its initial lithium purification facility in 2012 as well asbegin construction on the geothermal-tied version as an addition to such power plantsbeing built in the region by EnergySource. Already, there are 10 geothermal powerplants in the Imperial Valley. "You can produce 16,000 metric tons of lithiumcarbonate for every 50-megawatt geothermal power plant," Erceg notes.

As a result of re-injection, the company will not be left with the residue fromtraditional lithium mining. Plus, instead of relying on hard rock mining as is typical ofproduction today, Simbol lets the hot water of the subsurface Salton Sea do the workof leaching the materials out of the rock as well as purifying them into salts—a processthat involves evaporating water from lithium ponds for other producers around theworld, including in the U.S.

Also, the company would not need to purchase soda ash to enable production of

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lithium carbonate, as is typically done today. Instead, Simbol will take advantage ofwaste carbon dioxide from the geothermal power plant itself to create the material.Another economic advantage of Simbol's lithium process is its location: a mere 320kilometers from southern California's three major ports and not thousands of metersabove sea level, as are the major mines in South America that provide most of theworld's lithium today. It remains to be seen, however, if Simbol's product can competewith that generated by the big producers in Argentina, Australia, Chile and, in thefuture, Bolivia.

The Salton Sea brine contains a host of other elements, and Simbol hopes to extendthe extraction process to manganese and zinc—also used in batteries and metalalloys—as well as potassium, which is a vital nutrient and fertilizer, among otherapplications. "This brine has got half the periodic table in it and that's a goodnews–bad news situation," Erceg says, noting that cesium, rubidium and silver mightalso be produced the same way. The company is also exploring options for using theprocess's waste silica—more commonly known as sand—in the cement industry.

But the 500 metric tons per year of lithium from this initial purification facility willnot be going to U.S.-based battery-makers, at least not yet. Instead, the ITOCHUCorp., a Japanese partner of Simbol, will sell the purified lithium to battery-makers onthe other side of the Pacific Ocean. "The initial output of this plant, we expect to go toAsia," Erceg notes. "The reality is, today, for lithium ion batteries, manufacturing stillmeans Asia."

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September 29, 2011, 3:15 PMJamesDavis

Why can't America build that purification plant at each geothermal plant and use the lithium andother minerals to make batteries here and pay for it with the other minerals extracted from thebrine? It seems it would be a win win for both geothermal and lithium batteries in this country.And that seems to be a very easy way to mine lithium. Why can't America think of these thingsfirst?

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September 29, 2011, 3:16 PMJamesDavis

Why can't America build that purification plant at each geothermal plant and use the lithium andother minerals to make batteries here and pay for it with the other minerals extracted from thebrine? It seems it would be a win win for both geothermal and lithium batteries in this country.And that seems to be a very easy way to mine lithium. Why can't America think of these thingsfirst?


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October 2, 2011, 9:35 PMGord Davison JamesDavis

Because america's government is manipulated by powerful industries that work for their ownprofitability.


October 19, 2011, 9:19 AMhamidsadeghipour

Take the periodic table as columns of 2,8,816,16,…with the H, Li, Na, K, Rb, on the top of Thecolumns respectively. You have on the second diagonal Li, Mg, Sc, and what the exploratoryorganizations didn’t say Zr,…

On the first diagonal you have: H, Be, Al, Ti, Nb,..

On the third: Na, Ca, Y, Hf….

Nobody is to say which one appear after digging the wells.


October 19, 2011, 9:20 AMhamidsadeghipour

sorry for mistake of 816

Take the periodic table as columns of 2,8,8,16,16,…with the H, Li, Na, K, Rb, on the top of Thecolumns respectively. You have on the second diagonal Li, Mg, Sc, and what the exploratoryorganizations didn’t say Zr,…

On the first diagonal you have: H, Be, Al, Ti, Nb,..

On the third: Na, Ca, Y, Hf….

Nobody is to say which one appear after digging the wells.


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geothermal power plants could help produce lithium for electric cars - scientific american

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